Kochavim / Stargazing

Jewish World Review Jan. 4, 2001 /9 Teves, 5761


Elliot B. Gertel


Oprah redefines Jewish philanthropy

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- I COULDN'T RESIST attending what might well have been the largest fundraising dinner in recent American Jewish history.

The Chicago chapter of the Weizmann Institute of Science honored Oprah Winfrey with awards and a forum for her ideas and beliefs at a kosher dinner attended by some 2,000 people, mostly prominent Chicago Jews.

During the festivities, Ms. Winfrey was introduced as "America's therapist." Her production company, Harpo, Inc., provided a brief but effective video pushing Oprah's TV, film, and periodical ventures. The Weizmann Institute had a pretty effective video of its own, too, and its Israeli president-director was most eloquent.

Ms. Winfrey gave a rather detailed and telling account of her concerns and program for "the planet." At the beginning of her speech, she spoke of Israel. She said that her visit there had "changed the trajectory" of her life. But interestingly, it was not the spirit of the country, or even its scientific and social achievements, that affected her in this way as much as a visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum.

What fascinated "Oprah" was the resiliency of the Jewish survivors, but even more, the impact of Hitler—how one person could achieve such evil. "If one man could garner the forces to kill six million Jews, what could one 'once colored' woman do with a talk show?" Oprah asked. In other words, the lesson of the Holocaust is that people with political or media power must do great good to counteract those who have done great evil.

Now I accept that each student of the Holocaust, of whatever background, race or creed, will bring personal experience and concerns and agendas to his or her interpretation of the events. No one Jewish perspective, no matter how historically or theologically rooted, will become the approach accepted by all Jews, let alone by non-Jews, who contend with the horrors. So if people have a sense of the horrors and a heightened resolve to combat bigotry and hatred and violence, then the work of Holocaust education has been, to a meaningful extent, achieved.

I was touched that Winfrey was moved by Yad Vashem and that she found the event life-changing. Her emphasis on counteracting evil influence with Oprah influence is not an inappropriate response, given her powerful media exposure and even the Jewish theological response of rabbinic figures and intellectuals like Emil Fackenheim who have taught that the Holocaust demands a new commandment: "Don't give Hitler the final victory." But it is a response that raises questions for Jewish organizations and the future course of fundraising dinners.

After discussing Yad Vashem, Winfrey pushed an interview with Elie Wiesel in her magazine, "O." (I still say the best interview with Wiesel ever was the one by sportscaster Bob Costas, when he had his national late-night talk show on NBC.) Oprah then plugged her "Angel Network" charity program, suggesting that it, too, was inspired by Yad Vashem with its premise that "one person can make a huge difference."

She proceeded to extol her film, "Beloved," as the "story of a slave woman who makes a decision to go North to freedom in order to "give milk to her children," and then, as if to milk the moment, Oprah emphasized that "Beloved" is now available on video! What intrigued me was her suggestion that "Beloved" was somehow the product of the Yad Vashem visit, as well, that it was her way of declaring, "I came from a great people." Though Negro slaves did not have the opportunities, the access of others, she rightly reflected, they had spirit, heart and determination.

My concern with "Beloved," which I reviewed elsewhere, was that it was rather disrespectful of the black church as an institution in both its depiction of a particular congregation and in its suggestion that guidance does not come from G-d or Scripture as much as from a wise ancestor's spirit energy that helps to counteract the evils of agitated haunting spirits.

If, as Oprah suggested in her Weizmann Institute talk, evil media power can be countervailed by good media power, then she also seems to believe, as suggested in "Beloved," that angry or bad spirit-energy can be counterbalanced by benign or good spirit-energy.

Interestingly, in Winfrey's Weizmann Institute speech, she followed her plug for Beloved-the-Video with a defense of her "Remembering Your Spirit" segment on her daily programs. She used the opportunity to claim that she had introduced discussion of spirituality to TV and that this was a "brave thing to do."

Actually, talk show hosts had interviewed self-help and "spiritual awareness" gurus before, but had never promoted particular individuals and agendas in this field with glossy videos and maudlin therapy sessions, as Oprah had done in the early stages of these endeavors, in the spring and fall of 1998. She had used her program to push the pop spirituality of John Gray, Marianne Williamson, Carolyn Myss, Gary Zukav, Alice Walker, Iyanla Venzant, et al.

Oprah complained in the Weizmann Institute speech that the "Chicago Sun Times" had been among a minority who 'misunderstood" her spirit segment and distorted her intentions. She was referring to columnist Richard Roeper (now Roger Ebert's film reviewing partner on TV) who had criticized Oprah for the over-the-top New Age overtones of these segments and who had protested the pretensions of such "spiritual guidance." The truth is Winfrey's advocacy of a certain New Age or "Third Age" spirituality was a challenge to cherished beliefs of the major monotheistic faiths (particularly in the implied energy-worship), and should have been labeled accordingly. Some of her audience members made this very point perceptively and articulately on a show which featured Carolyn Myss as the "defender" of Oprah's spiritual guidelines (which largely echo Myss, anyway). I, for one, have been disturbed by Myss's reduction of Judaism to tribalism and by her inappropriate adaptations of Kabbalistic imagery.

As a result of Roeper's and others' protests, Winfrey did change the tone and content of the "Remembering Your Spirit" segment, focusing on human interest stories about achievement, insight, leadership and sacrifice ("sacrifice" being a dirty word to some self-help gurus who, happily, have not been featured recently).

As a whole, the "Remembering Your Spirit" segments are much better. Indeed, Winfrey should thank Roeper and the "Sun-Times" for prodding her to get a rein on the spiritists who had once overrun her program at her invitation. She still regularly features Zukav, whose writings attempt to provide "scientific" underpinnings to his ramblings on energy/spirit and on "relationships." (Oprah also gives him forum with troubled guests to demonstrate the "therapeutic" value of his teachings.)

I was disappointed that rather than taking Oprah to task for using a charity dinner as a forum to attack her own newspaper, the "Sun Times" reporter wrote adoringly of Oprah's honor and of her talk. The truth is that the "Sun Times," that is, Rick Roeper's column, spared Oprah's show from doing a talespin into New Age vagueries. A few days later, the paper gleefully reported that Oprah had extended her contract by a few years. But where was the loyalty to their own courageous columnist who had done more to improve Winfrey's show than many of her own producers?

This season, by the way, the show has been much improved, doing fine work covering such themes as communicating with children, understanding the lingering effects of divorce on children, well into adulthood, the ill effects of self-disparaging assumptions on one's life, basic marital counseling and child-rearing, etc. The program has shown terrific growth in the solid way that these subjects, which had been featured before but with far more attention to "New Age" doctrines and rhetoric, have been covered by Oprah and her guests so far this season. This is due in no small measure to Roeper's criticisms and to the press coverage of them in the tabloids (which showed much more courage than the mainstream papers).

As for the Weizmann dinner, I have to say that it quickly took the form of a slick and aggressive and, yes, engaging promotion for the various products of Oprah's corporations: the TV show, the magazine, the movies, and, especially, the "Angel Network," Oprah's on-air charity whose "three million dollars in pennies, nickels and dimes" (her words) have been used for college scholarships.

Apparently, Oprah lent her presence to the event in exchange for being able to promote her agendas in video and spoken form. At first, I was a little startled by the arrangement. Then, I almost had to admire it. I don't think I fully understood the brilliant and well-oiled mechanisms of it until I saw an episode of Bette Midler's new series in which Oprah appeared as herself.

The premise was that "Bette" hadn't gotten around to reading a book club selection by air time of her guest appearance on "Oprah," and put everyone in an embarrassing situation. On Midler's sitcom, Oprah's book club was exalted to almost sacred status and Bette's writers had her rhapsodizing every five minutes on Oprah's gifts as talk show host, executive, magazine publisher, reader, etc., etc., ad nauseum. I think I get it now: bigger ratings for Bette, a merchandizing blitz for Oprah.

I suppose that it's a win-win situation, whether Oprah graces a TV show or a fundraising dinner. It is a matter of ratings. But is anything else at stake?

Do Jewish organizations that invite Oprah and other celebrities thereby push certain beliefs, agendas and products? Does it matter, as long as the charity benefits? But how good are Oprah's spiritual agendas for Judaism?

Winfrey's talk left me identifying more with her grandmother than with Oprah's own approach. She offered a delicious quotation from her grandmother: "For as long as you can get down on your knees, child, you must bend your knees and pray." I liked the emphasis on prayer and on humility before G-d. Oprah fittingly interpreted this statement to refer to the importance of service of G-d and of people. But the wording of her commentary bothered me. She said: "Wherever you are in life, if you change the paradigm to serve, you will have power." Service as paradigm, service as power? Charity as promotion?

Early in her talk, Oprah quipped, "I think I might have been Jewish in another life." That comment, though clearly intended as humor, was nonetheless a wink at doctrines of reincarnation and spirit as popularized in New Age circles. Are those doctrines, at least the way they are popularized, compatible with Jewish spirituality?

Winfrey went on to say that her show's "spirit" segments are dedicated to the premise that "we are more alike than different," that we "have come to earth for a great purpose." I can't disagree with these basic premises. But I would add that any fundraiser for a Jewish cause, particularly the State of Israel and its institutions, grows out of a premise that the Jews as a people have a particular purpose in the world, that they are called to be different precisely to testify to the alikeness of all people under G-d, and that their notion of charity as tzedakah, or justice, is a unique approach to giving that is distinct from other religious or "spiritual" views.

Perhaps I found it difficult to relate to Oprah's rhetoric because she chose not to mention classical Jewish premises of charity and fundraising. Nor did she show empathy with what the achievements of the State of Israel mean to American Jews because of Jewish concepts of peoplehood and spirituality.

One of the Jewish attendees was quoted in the press as saying, "Oprah and the Weizmann Institute do the same thing. She helps people and they help people." That is true. No one can deny the kindness and generosity of the honoree and her commitment to helping people.

But on that night, the wholesale and blatant promotion of Oprah's agendas removed "Jewish fundraising" from the context of Jewish culture and religion.


Contributing writer Elliot B. Gertel, JWR's resident media maven, is a
Conservative rabbi based in Chicago. To comment, please click here.




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© 2001, Elliot B. Gertel